Photo: Nicole Vogt

For many years, the city of Mönchengladbach has been cooperating with the online marketplace eBay through its business development department. In the following, we present the different approaches in chronological order.

German retail trade is facing a challenge it has not experienced since the advent of self-service. For all ranges of products the turnover of the online retail trade is growing at the expense of the stationary retail trade – as yet to very different degrees depending on the product.

With this development in mind, the WFMG and the eWeb Research Center of the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences looked into approaches and concrete measures to strengthen the stationary retail trade over a period of 18 months starting in 2014 as part of the cooperation project “mg.retail2020“. The project was supported by numerous partners from the business world, including the city management associations Rheydt and Mönchengladbach, and by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy of North Rhine-Westphalia with funds from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

But this is not over with the end of the project: Concrete projects will be carried out in the future on the basis of the knowledge gained, which will turn the Mönchengladbach retail location into a sustainable multi-channel shopping experience. To strengthen the city centres of Mönchengladbach and Rheydt, the first step was to create the portal “Mönchengladbach on eBay”.

The project brochure provides you with an overview of the results and approaches of the study.

Mönchengladbach on eBay

In view of the rapidly growing online retail trade, the WFMG, the eWeb Research Center of the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences and the online marketplace eBay jointly launched the pilot project “Mönchengladbach on eBay”.

The aim of the project was to links the local retail trade with shopping on the internet. Thanks to a cooperation between eBay and mg.retail2020, local shop owners were given the opportunity to respond to the changing purchasing behaviour of customers and offer their products on eBay in addition to the existing sales channels. The pilot phase of the project ran from October 2015 to June 2016; 79 retailers from Mönchengladbach took part in it. Ordered articles can either be collected from the premises of the supplier or conveniently delivered to your home. This created a diverse range of products on offer on the regional landing page at www.mg-bei-eBay.de. “Mönchengladbach on eBay“ is still running.

eBay – Your City

2021, in the middle of the Corona pandemic, the successful project “Mönchengladbach on eBay” was expanded: Through the new initiative “eBay Deine Stadt” (eBay Your City), the offer has been expanded to include additional municipalities throughout Germany, which increases the response and is also accompanied by easier usability.

The advantage for participating merchants: In addition to the tried-and-tested local platform, they can now also be found on the national eBay marketplace (www.ebay.de) and can thus sell their items to 20 million people throughout Germany and even beyond. At https://www.ebay-deine-stadt.de/moenchengladbach, the offer of already at the start more than 200,000 goods of the more than 400 commercial traders from Mönchengladbach can be found – many of them with stationary business. In this way, local retailers can be supported online in a targeted manner – even if they are unable or unwilling to shop in the respective retail store themselves. Users will find a wide selection of products, as well as event tips, information about the city and more. What’s more, the local online marketplace gives neighborhood retailers a face: thanks to Google Maps integration, shoppers not only see where the respective retailer is located. In text and images, they also get to know them better.

With the expanded local online marketplace, Mönchengladbach is once again part of a Germany-wide project to strengthen local commerce. The “eBay Your City” initiative enables all interested cities and municipalities to set up local online marketplaces. In addition to Mönchengladbach, Nuremberg, Chemnitz, Lübeck, Potsdam, Moers, Bad Kreuznach, Gummersbach, Diepholz and the Ortenau region were also involved in the project at the start, which serves as a model.